


Carrying you to Carry Me

by Breath4Soul



Series: I Knew You Before I Knew Me [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Captain John Watson, I knew you before I knew me, Inspired by Photography, John watson and war - Freeform, Momento, POV John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, War, johnlock if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9807977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: A quick fanfic created by request of @Sherlockssister inspired by a particularly nice photo of Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) by benedictc on Tumblr.One day John finds a photo of a young man in a medical encyclopedia. Carrying that photo carries him through war until he at last meets the man that carried him through hell and back.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SherlocksSister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlocksSister/gifts).



John Watson was studying at the library, in his second year at Bart’s, when it slid out of a dusty, medical encyclopedia as it was removed from the shelf. A simple black and white photograph, but printed on some sort of special paper that almost made the grays look metallic silver. 

The photo was of a young man wearing a dark suit, his pale skin and white shirt standing in sharp relief to the darkness surrounding him. He looked carved from marble, the smooth, sharp planes of his face reminiscent of statues of Greek gods. His hair was longer, incongruous to his expensive suit, and artfully tousled.

John was instantly arrested by the young man’s eyes; intelligent and fierce. A take-no-prisoners, sharp and unyielding stare that seemed to pierce John’s soul and flay him open. The young man was un-smiling and leaning forward, as if expectant.

It stirred something in John he couldn’t name.

He tried to search for the young man in the photograph. The sign-out card in the book was scrawled with a simple SH and the librarian refused to share any information. In the days that followed, John always kept that photo with him, tucked in his pocket. He searched the campus, constantly scanned crowds and lived in the hope he’d stumble upon the enigmatic young man. He never stopped looking; ever vigilant, until the day he was deployed.

Then he knew all hope was lost. 

Yet, he could not part with the photograph.

The mysterious young man became his constant companion. Timeless. Ageless. Always the same. Always quietly invasive and expectant.

Amid the desert sands of Afghanistan, in the dark of night, in the heat of battle or in the eerie quiet waiting for the gunfire and explosions to start, he would pull the photo out and wonder what the young man in the photograph was doing right then. He wondered what color his eyes might be, how his voice might sound, what he looked like when he smiled. He wondered what the young man would say or think about him, the war, the horrors he’d seen that day, the men he’d failed to save. In the dark of night, he would look at that now tattered photo, run his thumb over that angular face and sometimes, when it was all too much, he’d cry.

The young man watched silently and when the fear, guilt and emotional pain had run its course, the young man was there, leaning forward and staring expectantly at John. John nodded his head, took a deep breath and carried on.

John kept the photo with him always; resting against his heart, like a shield, or hip, like a holstered weapon.

He lost everything that day he got shot. The blood from his shoulder wound spilled over the photo in his pocket and the doctors tossed John’s dearest possession, the photo of his constant companion, in the bin with his shredded clothes. Somehow that loss was as devastating as losing his career as an army surgeon. 

It was not until he was invalided back to England and he awoke screaming from his first really horrific nightmare, that the young man from the photo returned to him; etched into John’s memory in perfect detail. Then John could see him every time he closed his eyes. When, in darkness and desperation, he would cock his gun, press the barrel against his temple, and close his eyes, the young man would appear. His piercing eyes would stare into John, seeing all his pain and demanding he rise above it. So John would lower the gun, put on the safety, set it back in the drawer and carry on.

That day Stamford lead John into the little lab at Bart’s in search of a friend that needed a flatmate, John was distracted, thinking about his younger self in these labs so many years ago and the possibilities, now so distant and unattainable.

He looked up and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. The man before him was unmistakable. Tousled hair, pristine suit, pale angular face, sharp eyes. He was a bit older, but his smooth features made him still look impossibly young.

A ghost, a fantasy, made real.

“Here, take mine.” John said without hesitation, offering up his phone to this _not-a-stranger._ He watched, entranced, as those eyes at last turned to him, seeing him, seeing into him and he finally could witness what those lips looked like when they turned up in a slight smile.

That deep, resonating voice thanking him, made John want to give a giddy laugh. It was dawn breaking, the first warm rays of light chasing shadows and their evil inhabitants away.

“Afghanistan or Iraq,” the man asked as he took John’s phone. John stared straight ahead, thinking of the sun faded photo, smooth beneath his thumb. John looked up into the face that had followed him into the desert and silently saved him in so many big and small ways. It came as no surprise to John that those eyes flayed him open.

“Afghanistan,” John said. 

_We were in Afghanistan._

The man leaned forward and his expectant gaze bore into John. The ex-soldier straightened his spine. This face, that look, had followed John into hell and back and now, at long last, John could return the favor.  


**Author's Note:**

> Your Kudos and comments mean the world to me. If you feel the love, show the love!


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